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   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   What are you getting for your city tax dollars?   
      
   In the decade since the final Bloomberg-era budget, city spending has   
   soared by 12% above inflation.   
      
   New York spends far more, per person, than wealthy peers.   
      
   Until recently, the main culprit has been the massively ballooned size of   
   the city workforce, mostly in education, with little to show, in terms of   
   classroom results, to show for it.   
      
   But now, for the first time in decades, the city is placing an open-ended   
   bet not on public services, however, overfunded, but on social- services.   
      
   For decades, the city has kept social-services costs under control, but   
   Mayor Adams’ strategy of indefinitely housing migrants is blowing up such   
   costs.   
      
   City Hall downfall   
   In fiscal year 2014, the last budget that former Mayor Michael Bloomberg   
   put together, New York spent $99.5 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.   
      
   Bloomberg himself, despite his reputation for austerity, was no miser.   
      
   During his three terms, spending exceeded inflation by 42%, mostly led by   
   a massive first-term increase — more than 40% — in teachers’ salaries.   
      
   Now, in the fiscal year that started earlier this month, spending will top   
   out at $111.1 billion.   
      
   After federal and state grants, mostly for education and health care,   
   spending funded by city taxpayers is $82.8 billion — beating the last   
   Bloomberg year by 13%, and exceeding the last Bill de Blasio year by 2.4%.   
      
   New York spends far more than comparable cities: Boston, with its $4.3   
   billion budget, spends about $6,600 per person, while we spend $13,100.   
   Miami spends about $4,100.   
      
   So what are we spending all that extra money on?   
      
   Social services spending under Mayor Eric Adams graphic   
   After federal and state grants, mostly for education and health care,   
   spending funded by city taxpayers is $82.8 billion — beating the last   
   Bloomberg year by 13%, and exceeding the last Bill de Blasio year by 2.4%.   
   NY Post composite   
   About half of city spending goes to people — city workers’ salaries and   
   benefits.   
      
   In 2014, before de Blasio took over the budget, city spending on salaries   
   and benefits was $31.9 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.   
      
   Spending on worker benefits — pensions and health care — reached $23.4   
   billion.   
      
   In de Blasio’s final year, salaries reached $34 billion — growth of 7%.   
      
   Benefit spending grew 2%, to $23.8 billion.   
      
   That’s not because de Blasio hiked salaries or benefits above inflation,   
   but because the size of the workforce grew 11%, to a record 334,000.   
      
   In fact, because of the massive, uncontrolled expansion of the workforce   
   under de Blasio, city workers aren’t individually better off, despite all   
   this extra spending.   
      
   Their average annual wage and benefits pay, at the end of his term, was   
   $173,000.   
      
   That is a lot, but slightly less, in real dollars, than eight years   
   before.   
      
   Look at the books   
   But city spending and the number of city workers didn’t rise across the   
   board.   
      
   By far, de Blasio, like his predecessor, favored one area: education.   
      
   During his eight years in office, education spending rose a whopping 27%   
   above inflation, from $30.2 to $38.3 billion.   
      
   Education headcount rose from 134,000 people to 157,000 people — 17%.   
      
   Some of this was adding teachers for pre-K and smaller class sizes, but   
   much of it — more than 5,000 people — was administrative.   
      
   By contrast, spending and headcount in other core areas didn’t rise much   
   at all.   
      
   Police?   
      
   At $11.4 billion in 2022, it was down 2% in inflation-adjusted terms, as   
   police headcount, mostly civilian, rose just 3%.   
      
   Sanitation?   
      
   Spending up 4%, and headcount up 3%.   
      
   And despite his reputation as a progressive, de Blasio didn’t open the   
   spigots for social-services spending.   
      
   Medical costs for the poor, mostly Medicaid, actually went down 16% in   
   real terms, to about $7 billion, after the state started taking   
   responsibility for Medicaid cost increases.   
      
   The big exception was homeless services, which nearly doubled in real   
   terms, from $1.3 billion to $2.5 billion.   
      
   Even with this increase, though, thanks to curtailed spending on other   
   social-services, the total social-service budget — public assistance,   
   medical care and homeless services — actually shrunk a tiny amount in the   
   de Blasio years, from $11.4 to $11.3 billion.   
      
   To summarize the de Blasio years, then, you could say: Lots of extra   
   spending on education, which pushed up overall workforce spending.   
      
   But, except for homeless services, he didn’t blow out the budget on social   
   services.   
      
   Nor did he increase debt costs: thanks to low interest rates, they fell,   
   in real terms, from $7.3 billion to $7.2 billion.   
      
   Turn for the worse   
   What has changed under Adams?   
      
   The city’s workforce is actually shrinking, from de Blasio’s blowout   
   334,000 to less than 329,000 by the end of the current fiscal year next   
   June.   
      
   Even with Adams’s raises for public-sector workers, that means the blow-   
   out days of increasing salaries and benefits are over: Salary costs, at   
   less than $33 billion, will be 3 to 4 percent lower than the final de   
   Blasio year in real terms.   
      
   Even the ranks of the education department will shrink 2%, to 153,000 —   
   which explains the teachers union’s successful push to convince Gov.   
   Hochul to sign a law requiring lower class sizes.   
      
   The union desperately wants to keep the gravy train running.   
      
   Debt costs are rising, by about 7%, to $7.7 billion, as interest rates   
   rise. But that’s not enough to break the budget.   
      
   So what spending is skyrocketing?   
      
   Social services.   
      
   Adams proposes to spend a full $4.2 billion on homeless services this   
   year, a full two-thirds higher than final de Blasio year, and more than   
   three time higher than when de Blasio first took office.   
      
   That’s entirely due to housing migrants.   
      
   On paper, Medicaid and welfare spending won’t rise — although that won’t   
   be as true in future years, as the state shifts some Medicaid costs back   
   to the city.   
      
   But taken together, Medicaid, welfare and homeless spending will total   
   $12.6 billion this year — a full 11% increase, after inflation, above the   
   final de Blasio total.   
      
   But does Adams not think the tens of thousands — potentially well over a   
   hundred thousand — migrants attracted to New York’s housing-on-demand   
   policy will need medical services and education services, and, since the   
   federal government doesn’t approve food stamps for undocumented   
   immigrants, cash payments for necessities?   
      
   Bottomless pit   
   For all of de Blasio’s — and, for that matter, Bloomberg’s — increased   
   focus on education spending, the city, left to its own devices, wouldn’t   
   have had a hard time dialing it back.   
      
   Simply don’t hire retiring teachers, cut back on the bloated six-figure   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)